Tyrannizing Diversity: Feminist Politics and Sectarian Strife in Aslam’s The Golden Legend

Abstract

The Golden Legend (2017) by Nadeem Aslam is a fictional work that explores the intersectional issues of women's oppression and sectarian violence in Pakistani society. The present study aims to examine the depiction of women's oppression, exploitation, and marginalization in Aslam's The Golden Legend. It seeks to unveil the patriarchal structures that exist in Pakistani society and contribute to gender oppression faced by women on a daily basis. Sylvia Walby's work, Theorizing Patriarchy (1990), serves as the primary text for this research, which outlines six interdependent patriarchal structures, including patriarchal production mode, patriarchal paid work relations, male violence, patriarchal state, patriarchal culture, and patriarchal relations in sexuality. The research employs these structures to demonstrate how they work together to promote the ideology of patriarchal tyrants in society. Additionally, the study also highlights sectarian oppression to bring attention to the injustices faced by women from different sects. The research argues that the intersection of gender and sect is one of the major factors that exacerbate oppression in any society, which is why women from different sects are often subjected to coercion, as portrayed by Aslam in The Golden Legend. The research seeks to shed light on the urgent need to eradicate patriarchal and sectarian ideologies that perpetuate oppression in society. Therefore, the study first exposes the oppressive patriarchal structures in contemporary Pakistani society and then brings to light the oppression faced by women of the Christian faith due to their gender and sect.